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Background: Lung cancer (LC) causes severe symptoms and is fatal. A multimodal, integrative medical cancer concept (ACCEPT^®) was developed for LC patients. This included an ARTs module, a supervised home training program consisting of eurythmy, therapeutic speech therapy, or musical breathing therapy. The present study aimed to investigate whether integrating art therapy into standard oncology care could have beneficial effects on quality of life (QoL) and overall survival (OS).

Methods: A prospective, longitudinal open-label study of newly diagnosed patients with LC was conducted. Patients with LC stage II-IV were invited to participate in an outpatient ACCEPT^® programme and their QoL was followed using patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). All treatments received, PROM changes and end-of-life data were collected and analysed using R statistics.

Results: Data from 214 LC patients, 40 of whom participated in the complete ACCEPT^® programme including the ARTs module, were evaluated. After three months, large, clinically and statistically significant improvements of 8–17% (p < 0.0001) in QoL were observed for patients in the ARTs group, even for fatigue. Multivariate analyses revealed substantial and significant, dose-dependent improvements in PROM changes for each ARTs module that participants took part in. Even six and twelve months later, improvements in QoL of up to 11% were still evident in the ARTs group. OS analysis of the entire study cohort showed that the 40 patients of the ARTs group survived considerably longer.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates the clinically relevant, dose-related effects of an ARTs module on beneficial outcomes in LC patients.